diff --git a/app/core/chunk_payload.py b/app/core/chunk_payload.py
index 74e3d29..5bb17df 100644
--- a/app/core/chunk_payload.py
+++ b/app/core/chunk_payload.py
@@ -254,6 +254,12 @@ def make_chunk_payloads(
         if note_title is not None:
             pl["title"] = note_title
         if note_tags is not None:
+        # propagate optional retriever_weight from frontmatter
+        if frontmatter.get("retriever_weight") is not None:
+            try:
+                pl["retriever_weight"] = float(frontmatter.get("retriever_weight"))
+            except Exception:
+                pass
             pl["tags"] = note_tags
         if token_counts[i] is not None:
             pl["token_count"] = int(token_counts[i])
@@ -280,4 +286,4 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":  # pragma: no cover
     from pprint import pprint
     pprint(pls)
     recon = "".join(p["text"] for p in pls)
-    print("RECON:", recon)
+    print("RECON:", recon)
\ No newline at end of file